Conclusions XVIII Cable & Broadband Catalonia Congress
Investing in broadband networks, and specifically in fiber optics, will help Catalonia and Spain to overcome the crisis. That is the main conclusion of the XVIII Cable and Broadband Catalonia Congress, organized by the Cable Studies Centre (CECABLE) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and conducted with great public and contents of 7 to 9 May in the School of Engineering at UAB in Bellaterra.
“Investment in broadband infrastructure means more productivity and competitiveness, so that is the main strategic commitment to take to overcome the current economic situation”, says Dr. Joan Francesc Fondevila Gascón, CECABLE director and Universitat Abat Oliba CEU Communication Sciences Department director. “In FTTH networks, Spain already has some 400,000 connections, which reflects a very significant path where we have to persevere”, Fondevila adds. At the opening session, the director remarked CECABLE “assimilation, by all stakeholders, that more speed and quality of infrastructure will result in more possibilities for everyone, starting with content creators.”
For a connected society, the key is to combine fixed and mobile broadband. This was reflected José María Martinez, Wifidom, who presented several examples of applications in rural areas. The extension of optical fiber is the leitmotif of Adamo, present in Spain since 2007. The project in Asturias by the Asturian government up to supply high speed internet to the area of the mining valleys. The backbone network in Gijon, Madrid and Barcelona (22@) and Espanix connection in 2008 provided infrastructural muscle. In 2010 Adamo FTTH built its own network in Barcelona and Madrid. “Our commitment will continue,” said Fredrik Gillström, CEO and founder of Adamo.
To Eusebio Cabral, Accenture, the key to successful use of broadband is its exploitation in smart cities, cities that apply ICT in order to provide themselves with an infrastructure that enables sustainable development, increased efficiency in the use of resources, increased quality of life of its citizens and promoting citizen participation. The key elements of a smart city are the ubiquitous connectivity a broadband local network (local broadband network) that constitutes the “brain” of the smart city and creating an ecosystem where they develop innovative new services and applications, always participatory manner, as in Life 2.0 project, which includes, among other cities, to Barcelona. One of the most visible results is the augmented neighborhood: increasing the quality and quantity of information about what is happening in the neighborhood, and motivation of older people for services online.
Spain is located since 2012 in the European ranking of the 22 countries in which the optical fiber penetration exceeds 1%, according to a study by the European Institute of Fiber Optics. “This comes after an increase of 40% of customers in the first half of 2012, thanks mainly to the rollout by Telefónica in cities,” said Vicente Pando, Telefonica. It is noteworthy that the number of lines in Spain (adding fiber optic cable) between 20 Mbps and 50 Mbps has increased by 111% in two years, while the number of lines of more than 50 Mbps has done by 60% (two million lines added). The number of FTTH lines in service has nearly doubled in just a year, accounting for 2.5% of all fixed broadband lines. The user demand is at the root of the growth in demand for broadband. However, Spain is the world’s fourth largest illegal downloading (in order, Canada, China, Russia, Spain and Ukraine), and has become one of the European countries with the highest piracy and downloads contents. As for mobile broadband, Spain has climbed to 11th position within the OECD member countries, above average. Then there is the leadership in smartphones. Faced with this reality, Telefónica mobile network is adapting to the increased use of smartphones, tablets and 3G modems, expanding 3G coverage and bandwidth, adding more carriers to crowded places (cities, events or costs) and evolving accesses fiber base stations, from the order of Mbps links to Gbps. The LTE in Europe is unfolding thanks to spectrum refarming done and the release of 800 MHz band Spain not planned this refarming 2015. As the bands in Europe are being deployed for LTE are 800, 1800, 2600, in Spain are being made the necessary developments to begin deployment in these bands. This requires changing the current network architectures (a network for each service) and move to a robust architecture and unique for all services and access and scalable, capable of absorbing the demand.
The company is one of the main beneficiaries of broadband, according Narcís Coll, BT Global Services. “The company asks for more bandwidth and is more demanding in this regard”. For Xavier Martin, Ilimit, broadband is essential for the development of cloud projects, whether public or private. “It takes a bet even greater public administration by cloud,” notes Martin. Virtual Desktop Services also articulated key cloud, as postulated Cloudgroup, eyeOS and Proceedit. From Endovao, Santi Bassa and David Perálvarez remarked that a start-up should work differently than a conventional company. Emilio Castellote, Panda Security, emphasized the safety factor, also in cloud. For Ramon Roca, guifi.net, telecommunication networks in the future are open, free and neutral. For Xavier Casajoana, of VozTelecom, the trend of information and communication of SMEs is to be in the cloud. “Everything will be cloud, and we have to get used to it.” Since Colt Technology Services, Sergio Martinez opted for integrated solutions.
“The historic cable networks remain a safe value in the broadband landscape in Catalonia and Spain,” Joan Francesc Fondevila, CECABLE director, said at the roundtable on traditional cable. Cases such as Catalonia, where in Riba-roja d’Ebre was reached break even in two years in a fiber optic network driven by the government, or of Viladecans (also neutral network service) or L’Ametlla de Mar (private network), and other projects in the making, “demonstrate the network upgrade in those municipalities and loyalty of subscribers that can access quadruple or quintuple play by play that have service-oriented companies citizens and local businesses”, according Fondevila. For Xavier Edo, Alpha Enginyeria Acotec Telecommunications, the efforts of historic cable networks are commendable, “and technological modernization is increasing.” The representatives of municipalities of Mequinenza and L’Ametlla de Mar stressed the potential of broadband networks in towns not large.
Xarxa Oberta de Catalunya (XOC), which received the contract for collaboration between the public and private sectors of the Generalitat de Catalunya, is building and deploying a network of high-bandwidth optical fiber connecting the current and future locations of all institutions that make up the Generalitat of Catalonia and local point of presence. According to Jordi Soler, XOC manager, operation, maintenance and management of the network is carried out by “the provision of self-service connectivity and optical transport layer Layer 2 Ethernet level”. It also provides a range of services to offer connectivity to all interadministrative points of local presence, and takes advantage of the excess capacity of the network to provide connectivity services in the wholesale market in the terms determined by the Directorate General of Competition of the European Commission. In May 2013 XOC reached headquarters of the Government 235 and 282 municipalities connected by 1560 km. available fiber.
Unit4 emphasized the new relationship CEO-CIO. While CEOs talk about diversification, emerging markets, customer communication and sustainability, “CIOs cannot keep talking about ICT infrastructure, cloud computing, ERP, CRM,” notes Joan Marc Llesuy. In this situation, CIOs must interpret perfectly the new priorities of the CEO, to reorganize its structure and strategy around them and renew the role of ICT in the organization to remain relevant. On cloud, depends on three parameters: number of authorized users to access applications, service level SLA (Service Level Agreement) as multiple choices of service and level of commitment (time spent).
Telecommunication operators are the first beneficiaries of the measurement tools of digital signals, in the opinion of Robert Pous, Promax, and so the customer gets a better signal. The evolution of structured cabling systems reflects telecommunicative sector is the most dynamic of today, according to Manuel Pujol, Datwyler Cabling Solutions. Abacanto stressed the importance of controlling the MDI (Media Delivery Index), calculated using the distribution Index Media (audio, video and data), the relationship between the factor of delay (milliseconds required to drain the virtual buffer in a particular network node and at a specific time) and MLR (Media Loss Rate, Ratio and audio video loss or number of lost packets during a certain time interval). The MLT (Media Lost Total) is the total data loss (average = Video, Audio and Data). The field meters, spectrum analyzer, constellation or echo, the spectrogram Merogram and help control the quality of the signal.
Test Argus Iberian presented ARGUS product line, manufactured in Germany by its parent Intec GmbH. This is a range of measuring instruments for access networks over copper wire, used by companies and installers of telecommunications operators worldwide to verify the operation of the access lines in broadband DSL primarily, but also covering other older technologies such as ISDN or PSTN, and providing additional measurement functions power over copper wire.
Argus made a tour of the historical evolution of broadband networks over copper wire, describing and showing your catalog products tailored to the needs of checking each access technologies. Since the initial proposal of ADSL to the latest developments on VDSL2 as vectoring and bonding, that can offer speeds of 100 Mbps and beyond, as well as other proposals for the future (as G.fast) that provide power to achieve up to 500 Mbps over copper wire, “Argus has adapted their equipment to the new standards, and their teams are ready to support new technologies known as DSL acceleration”, according Gonzalo Sánchez.
In the current environment of broadband, highly competitive and under great pressure to provide access speeds increasing, service providers must make large investments to adapt their access networks to the new demands. In this situation, and although the future bet seems mostly chosen GPON technology for access via optical fiber, thanks to new and future developments in DSL is still possible to use the existing cabling plant and adapt it to new needs and can obtain access speeds over copper wire comparable to those offered GPON technology over fiber. Emphasized SafeNet security costs (TCO): forensic investigation, notify users, remedies to take, call-center special, lost profits (opportunity cost). For Alfonso Martínez, rules to prevent data breach are encrypting, policies define access to data, control the encryption keys, authenticate users and educate employees.
The institutional roundtable on broadband reflected is the major strategic public policy Catalan and Spanish. “The idea of having ultrafast broadband FTTH starts to spread among a population increasingly aware, and in Catalonia has been a goal that slowly is approaching through various solutions and drivers”, says Fondevila. To Carles Salvadó, of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the efforts of the public have been huge for positioning the country’s economy, and “there has been a clear commitment despite changes of government”. That bet was questioned by Jordi Soler, of XOC, adding that only twenty Catalan municipalities are profitable. From Feceminte, Roman Lantarón stressed the need to control the quality of facilities and struggles against the intrusion. Mauro Soto, Localret, emphasized the need for open networks and coordination with municipal initiatives. David Ferré, the COETC (Association of Telecommunications Engineers of Catalonia), proposed wider deployment of fiber to the method of micro-trenching, and Alex Ramoneda, College / Catalan Association of Telecommunication Engineers, praised the models of Sweden and Australia .
Anxanet outlined the benefits of its virtual fiber concept, with capabilities similar to the optical fiber and minimal latencies, as symmetric flow (almost no limit), warranty service, moderate costs, shared network link between polygons, broadcast stations wide coverage, minimal installation at the customer, professional wireless network, high performance, and business oriented. According to David Andreu, “capillarity virtual optical fiber and its immediate implementation favor the penetration of broadband and awaken its application”.
The relentless evolution of nonlinear television was highlighted by the presentation of Lluís Borrell, Analysys Mason. However, “we recommend a higher average speed”. Only countries like Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland seem well prepared for the challenge. Both single users as video downloads, as in minutes of television consumed, as online TV revenues, the overall numbers are rising significantly. In this way, the standard HbbTV (Hybrid TDT baptized in Spain) is promising, as Xavier Redon, Abertis Telecom. In that vein, Xavier Porras, Banc Sabadell, remarked that content such as virtual banking can benefit from the new digital ecosystem.
In the event there was the colaboration of Generalitat de Cataluña, Universidad Abat Oliba CEU, UAB, Cercle Fiber, Club de Marketing Barcelona, Colegio de Ingenieros Técnicos Industriales de Barcelona (CETIB), Colegio de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación de Cataluña (CETC), Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros Técnicos de Telecomunicación de Cataluña (COETTC), Colegio Oficial de Ingeniería en Informática de Cataluña (COEIC), Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones (CMT), Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación de la UAB, Federación Catalana de Empresarios Instaladores de Telecomunicaciones (Feceminte), Federación de Instaladores de Telecomunicaciones (Fenitel), Barcelona Digital Centro Tecnológico, Talencia, TIC.CAT, Red.es, Localret, AOTEC (Asociación Nacional de Operadores de Telecomunicaciones y Servicios de Internet), AEDOC (Asociación Española de Documentación Digital), AETIC (Asociación Empresas de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones de España), ANEI (Asociación Nacional de Empresas de Internet), APD (Asociación para el Progreso de la Dirección), Asimelec (Asociación Multisectorial de Empresas Españolas de Electrónica y Comunicaciones), Asociación Catalana de Tecnología (ACTec), Asociación de Técnicos de Informática (ATI), Astel (Asociación de Empresas Operadoras y de Servicios de Telecomunicaciones), Redtel (Asociación Española de Operadores de Telecomunicaciones), CTecno, Parque Tecnológico del Vallès (PTV), CENATIC (Centro Nacional de Referencia de Aplicación de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación TIC), Ilimit, International Association of Technology, Education and Development (IATED), Fundación para el Desarrollo Infotecnológico de Empresas y Sociedad (Fundetec), Plataforma FOTÓNICA21 o Sociedad Catalana de Tecnología.
